


The Lost Tribe

by Redrikki



Series: Jennifer Hailey, Vampire Slayer [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-12 08:51:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 11,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/809677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/pseuds/Redrikki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being a Slayer never meant much to Lt. Jennifer Hailey, but between a crisis off-world and a prophecy, it may mean a lot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Slayer Dreams

Hailey was dreaming about vampires. She was chasing them through a strange forest filled with large white flowers. The radio buzzed in her ear and the rattle of a P-90 echoed in the night. There was a crackle of tree branches to her right and she brought her gun to bear as–

The scene changed abruptly, and suddenly Hailey stood in the center of a circle of teenage girls. They were playing catch with an odd silver and red ax-thing, and it quickly devolved into a game of monkey in the middle. The girls giggled and the weapon’s blade sang as it repeatedly flew over Hailey’s head and out of her reach. “Come on guys,” she whined like a small child as she jumped to catch the ax-thing. “Let me have it. I wanna play.”

The giggling ended like she’d hit a mute button. “Are you sure that’s what you want?” asked the girl with the ax, her face deadly serious. “Then take it,” she instructed and offered the weapon up. Hailey reached for it and as her fingers touched it–

She was back in the woods fighting a vampire. They were practically nose to nose, and Hailey could clearly see his Jaffa-like tattoo even through the ridges of his forehead. She lashed out with the stake that was suddenly in her hand, but the vampire blocked her and struck back. Hailey reeled backwards from the blow and the vampire followed up with a kick to her chest. She went down hard, arms flung open wide, and he moved in for the kill. Hailey felt the prick of his fangs before her stake found his heart. Through the cloud of his dust, she saw three moons set among unfamiliar stars before she awoke in her tent under the twin moons of PS3-85B.

Somewhere on earth, under the gaze of it’s single moon, nearly a dozen Slayers woke from dreams of vampires under alien skies.


	2. Another Day at the Office

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A team off-world encounters a problem.

General Jack O’Neill was in the middle of some really boring paperwork when the klaxons began to sound. “Unscheduled off-world activation,” Walter’s voice blared out over the p.a. system. O’Neill threw his pen down with a sigh. He could barely remember their last _scheduled_ off-world activation. Between Anubis, the Replicators and unfriendly natives the SGC had been having a rough couple of months.

He made it to the control room in time to see the iris slide shut over the opening wormhole. “Anything yet?” he asked the gate technicians.

“We’re receiving a signal,” Walter told him. “It’s SG-16 iris code.”

“Open the iris,” the general ordered.

Lt. Colonel Castlemen stepped through with two packs and two guns. He began calling for a medic as soon as his similarly burdened second had re-materialized. Neither of them looked injured, but where were Hailey and Doyle? They arrived together a moment later. O’Neill knew she had superpowers, but there was something a little ridiculous and more than a little surreal about the sight of the big, burly sergeant slung over the tiny lieutenant’s shoulders. 

There was a large bruise and a trickle of blood running down the sergeant’s face from a gash on his forehead. “What happened?” the general demanded. Was it goa’uld? Hostile locals?

“Got clothes-lined by a tree branch,” Castlemen told him with a smirk as Hailey laid Doyle on the stretcher. O’Neill fought to keep an answering smirk off his face as muffled sniggers echoed in the gate room. Bad enough that the sergeant had to get carried home by a girl, getting beaten up by a _tree_ was something he’d never live down. 

“Go get checked out,” O’Neill ordered the team bellow him. “Briefing in one hour.” He stood and watched SG-16 file out. The blast door slid closed behind them and the general turned to head back to his desk when the gate fired up again. 

“Unscheduled off-world activation,” Walter informed the room at large as though they hadn’t already noticed. The SF’s in the gateroom brought their weapons to bare again and the iris closed with a metallic click. 

Here we go again, the general thought. Being The Man was getting old fast. Walter and Lieutenant Simmons looked at him expectantly for the usual question. “Do I have to say it?” O’Neill asked instead. Walter gave him that mildly disappointed look he wore whenever O’Neill did something particularly un-general like.

Lieutenant Simmons smiled slightly and absently tapped his headphones. “We’re receiving an audio signal.”

The general nodded. “Patch it through.”

“–Iris. Repeat, do not open the iris,” came a familiar voice. It was Colonel Dave Dixon. Just yesterday he and the rest of SG-13 had called home asking for permission and supplies to study the ruins on Px9-3QL for another week. Why were the calling now?

“This is General O’Neill,” he said into the microphone. “The iris is closed. Now, what’s going–” There was an ominous thud, the whole room winced and the general’s stomach sunk to his toes. “Dave?”

“The gate is surrounded by hostiles. We’re hold up in the DHD house and that seems to have some sort of force field keeping them out but” –there was another thud– “we can’t get through to the gate.”

O’Neill nodded to himself. They were safe for now, but cut off. Food wasn’t an issue, but water might be. How hard would it be to mount a rescue? “The hostiles. They’re what?” –thud– “Jaffa?”

“No, sir.” Dixon responded. “Never seen anything like them. They’re humanoid, but with gold eyes and” –thud– “fangs. They bit Bosworth and bullets just seem to piss them off.”

Guns didn’t work and they _bit_ people? Suddenly a rescue mission was sounding a lot harder but even more necessary. “They bit him? Is he alright?”

“They got him in the throat before we pulled them off. We’ve got the bleeding stopped, but it’s not good.” 

“Understood” They needed to get them out of there as soon as possible. “We’ve had four come through. How many are left?”

“At least 50.” 

“50? How the hell did you miss them before this?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Dixon ground out. He sounded frustrated. “The damn things just showed up as soon as the eclipse started.”

O’Neill was momentarily thrown. There was an eclipse now? Since when? If the two were really connected, it might make all their lives a lot simpler. “This is good. Eclipses usually don’t last more than a few hours, so if these guys are here for that–”

“No, sir,” Dixon interrupted. “According to Balinsky, the stele in the main plaza says something about a Great Darkness. Something about the neighboring planet blocking out the sun for a year.”

“A year? Oy.” So much for that plan. “Sit tight for now and we’ll get you out of there.” 

“I know you will, sir.”

The SGC never left their people behind, even ones trapped on another planet by bullet-proof blood-sucking aliens. Where there’s a will and all that cliché stuff. All they needed now was a plan.


	3. Just Your Standard Prophecy of Doom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Council gathers for some non-Freudian dream analysis.

Never let it be said that their new and improved Council couldn’t take a hint. When nearly a dozen Slayers all have the same dream there are definite hints to be had. Hence the research. Giles and his minions had hit the books, and now, two days later, the dreamers and the Council higher-ups were all assembled for some quality non-Freudian dream analysis. 

Giles called the meeting to some sort of order. “As you all know,” he began, “we’ve been trying to track down our dream vampires. I am happy to say that we’ve managed to find a few leads.”

“You know where they are?” Vi asked excitedly. For such a mousy Potential, she sure was hard core into the slaying. 

“Well, no, but we did find the symbol you all described,” Giles explained. “It seems to be the mark of the demon-god Belus. Now, Belus is traditionally associated with Babylon, but some of the sources indicate that he was originally from” –he paused as if considering words– “well, elsewhere. According to the writings of the vampire prophet Aurelius he took a number of vampires to this, er, elsewhere. There is a prophecy about this lost tribe, as it were.”

There was a collective groan from everyone in the room. “When isn’t there,” Buffy groused. This job was all about the prophecies and crazy demon rituals. It got a little old. 

“Yes, well, be that as it may,” Giles plowed determinedly on, “according to the Book of Aurelius” –he hefted the book to quote directly– “In the time of the ninth great darkness the travelers shall come and lead them home. The portal will stand open, its guardians will fail in their watch, and they shall pass to earth.”

“So, where’s the portal?” Robin got right to the point. He was focused like that.

“No idea actually,” Giles admitted.

“Can we say ‘disaster waiting to happen?’” snarked Xander. “Hey, wouldn’t it be really embarrassing if it turns out we’re the guardians?” 

“I rather think we’d know if we had a mystical portal,” Giles pointed out.

“Work of Valios anyone?” teased Buffy. The baby Slayers all looked lost at the reference, but Giles’ blush and flustering brought her satisfaction enough.

“Whatever. Are we here to cover our asses or stop the vamps?” Rona sure had a knack for cutting through the bull. It had bugged the crap out of Buffy back in Sunnydale, and it was only marginally less annoying now that she wasn’t trying to lead an army of reluctant Potentials.

Buffy brought them back on topic. “So, do we have any leads on this portal thing-y?”

Giles sighed. “Not really, no.”

“What about the twelfth Slayer?” asked Niyati, one of the new girls. “Everyone is here from my dream but her.” There was someone missing? This was the first Buffy had heard about it.

Apparently Giles hadn’t heard about it either. “There was another? But no one else reported dreaming.”

“Maybe she’s new.” Willow was always excited when they found new Slayers. “What’s she look like?”

“She was white,” answered Lollise from Botswana, “and she was older.”

“Older?”

“Yeah,” agreed Koria the Maori Slayer in her accent from down under. “I’d say she was early to mid-twenties.”

“Mid-twenties?” asked Kennedy. She hadn’t had the dream either, but as the new Slayer with the most training and Willow’s girlfriend she always had a seat at the war table. “I thought I was the oldest.”

“Guess not,” said Buffy. “Do we have anything else to go on? ‘Cause white women in their twenties, not really narrowing things down.” 

“She had on some sort of uniform,” Caridad elaborated. “And she had a big gun. I think she was in the army, but I don’t know who’s.”

“That’s all very well and good,” Giles said a bit impatiently, “but it doesn’t get us any closer to the portal.”

“What if it does?” Faith asked suddenly. “Right now our mystery gal is all we’ve got to go on. She’s as good a lead as any and I say we follow it.” Faith had a point. She’d been doing that a lot lately and it sort of wierded Buffy out. Since when had Faith gotten all insightful and plan-having?

“I’ve got to go with Faith on this one,” Buffy said. “This girl’s military, and it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve played with stuff best left to us experts.”

“So then we start hacking into military databases all over the world.” Willow sounded excited at the prospect. “We look at medical records and service reports and stuff.”

“Or we could hold off on the law breaking and try checking with the Slayer we already know is in the military,” Xander pointed out reasonably.

“Wait. We know a Slayer in the army?” Clearly Buffy was out of the loop on this. She needed to be more loop included.

“U.S. Air Force actually. And yeah, we do.”


	4. Myth, Truth & Everything In Between

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The SGC tries to wrap their heads around the whole alien vampire problem.

The briefing was going nowhere and doing it at an agonizingly slow pace. They were supposed to be brainstorming ideas for rescuing SG-13 from PX9-3QL, but so far all they’d managed to do was bore Daniel to tears.

“If we could just isolate the portion fo the light spectrum that effects them, then we could modify some sun lamps and use them to drive the hostiles from the Gate,” Dr. Lee proposed.

Sam shook her head. “It wont work,” she told him. “Even assuming that they are actually allergic to sunlight and not just attracted to the eclipse, we have no way of knowing, let alone replicating, the sun’s normal radiation.”

“What about the readings from the MALP?” asked one of the new scientists. Daniel couldn’t recall his name, Dr. Something-or-other.

“The MALP only records visible light and infrared. We don’t have any data on PX9-3QL’s sun’s UV radiation.”

“Wait, I’m confused,” Jack jumped in. “We’re doing what?”

“Nothing, sir,” answered Sam. “The sun’s light spectrum–”

“Carter!” Jack silenced her with a hand gesture. “So, essentially what you’re telling me is that I just wasted a half-an-hour of my life sitting here listening to you people arguing about nothing? Oy.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Daniel, Teal’c? Please, something useful.”

“Among the Jaffa there is a legend about the servants of the goa’uld Belus,” Teal’c began.

“Belus!” Daniel interrupted. “He killed Omoroca.” Everyone stared at him blankly. “Nem’s wife,” he clarified. No one’s expression changed.

“Yeah.” Jack drew the word out. “Teal’c, you were saying?”

Teal’c favored Jack with one of his little head bows and continued. “It is said that the servants of Belus possessed great strength even beyond that of a Jaffa and that they drank the blood of their enemies. They were indestructible in battle and feared only the sun.” 

“That almost sounds like earth myths about vampires,” Daniel mused aloud.

“Vampires,” Jack exclaimed sounding more than a little incredulous. “Vampires,” he repeated in a quieter, almost thoughtful, tone. 

“Indeed,” said Teal’c. “The vampires of Nosferatu seem most similar.” 

The other scientists at the table looked scornful, and Jack was busy whispering something to an airman, but Daniel’s mind whirred. Vampires, the servants of Belus and the creatures of PX9-3QL; what if they were all the same thing? They were too similar to be pure coincidence. He needed to check his books.

“Except that vampires aren’t real.” The new guy over-emphasized the words like he was speaking to an especially slow child and Daniel bristled. 

“But they might be,” he insisted. “Think about it. Thor’s Hammer, Atlantis, the goa’uld themselves; how many other earth ‘myths’ might be based in off-world fact? These aliens on PX9-3QL might be the servants of Belus. We know he was on earth in Babylon nearly 4,000 years ago. His servants might be the source of all vampire myths on earth.”

“Maybe,” Sam hedged, still looking skeptical. She always had trouble accepting mythology in all its unscientific glory. “Maybe they are, but that doesn’t necessarily help us. We have no way of knowing how accurate those stories are.”

“Actually, Carter,” said Jack, “we do.” He gestured to Lieutenant Hailey who, Daniel realized, had just arrived. What was their resident hok’tar doing there?

“Hailey,” Jack asked her, “what do you know about what’s happening on PX9-3QL?”

“Well, sir, I know that a supposedly year-long eclipse just started and that half the science department would kill to be there.” Daniel smiled at that. Sam had been saying something to that effect over coffee not an hour before the briefing.

“And do you know why they’re not going?”

Hailey shrugged. “Something about hostile natives? The rumor mill wasn’t too specific, sir.”

“They’re blood-drinkers. Gold eyes. Bullet-proof. Don’t like sun. Sound familiar?”

Apparently it did because Hailey had gone white. “PX9-3QL has three moons doesn’t it?” she asked quietly.

“Uh...” Now Jack looked as confused as Daniel felt. He looked at Sam for confirmation. She nodded. “So” –he turned back to Hailey– “as our resident vampire expert, what should we do?”

“Wait.” Had Daniel missed a memo or something? “Hailey’s a vampire expert? You mean they’re real? You knew they were real and you didn’t tell me?” He was practically shouting at the end. This was earth shattering and his best friend had somehow forgotten to mention it. Daniel was a little miffed.

Jack just blinked at him for a minute before turning back to the Lieutenant to await her answer. “I’ve killed a few, sir,” she said, “but I wouldn’t call myself an expert.” She paused, clearly considering her next words. “But I do know someone who is.”

Jack nodded and leaned back in his chair. “So who are we gonna call?” –pause– “It better not be the Ghostbusters.”


	5. Phone Call At O'Dark:30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xander Harris gets a call from the US Airforce.

Xander and Anya were having sex in a giant bowl of blue jello. It bounced and rolled like a water-bed and left them very sticky. “God, I love you,” Xander murmured into Anya’s neck at an especially climactic moment.

She pulled back and smiled down at him. “Kill the rabbit, kill the rabbit, kill the rabbit, kill the rabbit,” she sang.

Xander blinked up at her in confusion. “What?” It wasn’t so much out of character as really out of context.

Anya opened her mouth again but this time only tones came out. “Da dana dana, da dana dana, da dana dana, da dana dana.”

“Hu?” The dream dissolved as the cell phone on the night-stand beside him launched into a third repetition of the song.

“Do you have any clue what time it is?” he growled into the phone. His eyes were burning and his head felt mushy. This was so the last time he stayed up researching with Giles and Dawn just for old time’s sake. 

“Ah, 19:30 hours,” came a timid and unfamiliar female voice.

“Try oh-really-freakin’-early-thirty,” he snarled back.

“Um, this is Jennifer Hailey,” she told him.

Who? Oh. Right. “Colorado. You’re in Colorado. It’s” –he glanced at the clock-radio– “2:33 a.m. here in England.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “Do you want me to call you back?”

“Naw, now’s okay. Just give me a minute to wake up.” With that Xander dropped the phone on the bed and stumbled into the bathroom to splash some water on his face. He took a leak while he was there and headed back to the phone slightly more alert than before. “Okay. I’m back. Thanks for returning my call.”

“You called me?” Hailey sounded confused. “I actually need to talk to you about something else.”

“Alright. Shoot.”

“Sir, maybe you should explain.” Now it was Xander’s turn to be confused. Since when was he sir, and how could he explain her problem to himself?

“Hi,” a man suddenly joined in. “I’m General O’Neill, Lieutenant Hailey’s commanding officer. We’re having a vampire problem.”

Well, that explained the sir. Xander couldn’t believe he was talking to a general in his pajamas. “Uh, what’s the problem?” 

“Vampires,” answered the general in a slightly sarcastic tone. “About 50 of them.”

“50?” Holy crap, Batman! What were that many doing outside of a hellmouth? “That’s not good.”

“Yah think?” The generals sarcasm was out in full force.

“No, I mean it’s really not good. Vampires usually do the small group thing. Families, gangs, stuff like that. That many together outside of a hellmouth usually means ritual and that means bad.”

“Ritual?” This voice was new and way too enthused for two in the morning or 19:30 or whatever time it was.

“Hi,” said Xander. “And you are?”

“Oh, sorry. I’m Dr. Jackson. What did you mean ritual?”

“Ya know, the Harvest, the Feast of St. Vigeous, the flaying of the demon Azarath, stuff like that. High body count, general unpleasantness, sucks for everyone not a vampire.” A thought occurred to Xander. “Hey, am I on speaker?” Had they all heard him pee?

Jackson ignored the question in favor the wacky world of demonology. “Vampires have their own rituals? That’s fascinating.” Clearly the man was almost as big a book-geek as Giles. Xander bet he wore glasses. “I wonder if it has to do with–”

“Daniel,” the general barked. Yup, Xander thought. Definitely on speaker. 

“Jack,” Dr. Jackson, presumably this Daniel person, replied in much calmer tones.

“Daniel.” O’Neill sounded like he was rapidly running out of patience. 

“They do this often?” Xander asked the world in general. 

“Indeed,” rumbled a third man.

Xander yawned. Alright, as fun as this conversation wasn’t, he really needed to get back to sleep. “Right, so, 50 vampires. I can have a team in Colorado by lunch.”

“The vampires aren’t actually in Colorado Springs,” the general told him.

“Okay.” Xander was getting frustrated. “So where are they?”

“Some of my people ran into them on a mission,” O’Neill explained without actually telling him anything. Xander let the comment lie for a moment in the hopes the man might fill in some more details. He didn’t.

“Wow. You want to vague that up for me?” There a few chuckles from the other end of the line, but nothing from the general. Xander sighed. This top secret crap was getting old fast. “You know I can’t help you if you don’t tell me where the vamps are, right?”

“Mr. Harris, we’re the U.S. Air Force. We don’t need backup, we need your professional advice.”

Xander considered. On the one hand, historically speaking, vampires vs. the U.S. military had not gone well. On the other hand, telling them what they wanted would get him off the phone faster. “Vampires die in four ways; sunlight, fire, beheading and stake through the heart. Vampires are, like, five times stronger than the average human, so unless you’re all Slayers, the hand to hand stuff, stakes and beheading, they’re out. They’re usually smart enough to avoid the sun, so your best bet is flame-throwers and the smell of napalm in the morning.”

“Anything else?”

“Have your people wear crosses. Big ones.”

“That actually works?” It was a woman, but not Hailey. Xander didn’t bother to ask for her name.

“Yup. Any sacred symbol actually. It’s just a lot easier to make a cross than a Dharma wheel. Holy water works too. It wont kill, but a Supersoaker or holy water balloon’ll make them back off in a hurry.” Xander yawned wide enough to swallow the phone. “Anything else you need?” 

“No, I think that’s all for now,” the general said. “Thank you for your time.”

“Actually,” Hailey finally rejoined the conversation, “while we’re here, what did you want to talk to me about?”


	6. Weirdest Briefing Ever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Samantha Carter has had briefings with herself from a parallel universe. This one is weirder.

They were having a talk about vampires. They were having a talk with vampires in it. Over the years, Carter had been at some pretty strange briefings. She had once sat at this very table with her double from a parallel universe, but that had been scientifically explainable, that had made sense. Vampires didn’t make sense, they weren’t explainable, therefore they shouldn’t exist. And yet, here they were, on the phone with a supposed vampire expert. He was flippant, matter-of-fact and half-asleep, and somehow that made it worse. It was by far the strangest briefing ever, and then Hailey had to go and make it even weirder. 

“What did you call me to talk about?” she asked Harris.

“Oh,” he answered with a yawn, “I was just wondering if you’ve been dreaming about vampires some place with three moons.”

Hailey went white and it took Carter a second to figure out why. Three moons. PX9-3QL had three moons and Hailey had asked about them. She’d had the dream. She’d had it and somehow Harris knew. What the hell was going on here?

“Why?” Hailey demanded harshly. Apparently she had recovered from her shock and moved on to anger.

“A bunch of the girls had this dream,” explained Harris. “Vampires, three moons, a Slayer that sounded like you. Thought I’d call, see if you’d had it too.” And then he yawned. Again.

Carter thought her head was going to explode. This wasn’t something to yawn about. People didn’t share dreams, alright, maybe if they were members of an alien species that shared a collective consciousness, but not humans. “That’s impossible,” she burst. “Sir” –she turned to the general– “the odds against two people having the same dream, let alone a ‘bunch’ of them, are astronomical. It’s–”

“A Slayer thing,” Harris interrupted her. “Super-strength, prophetic dreams and, if you act now, this nifty t-shirt.”

Carter’s anger and frustration boil over. This wasn’t a joking matter; this was serious. Everyone knew Hailey was a hok’tar, but still. What Harris was so casually suggesting violated every known understanding of the human brain and possibly a few laws of quantum physics. It was so scientifically and statistically impossible it made vampires look sane. 

“How do you know?” Hailey asked. “How do you know they’re prophetic?”

“Well,” answered Harris, “in this cases, there’s an actual prophecy.”

“Oh,” General O’Neill said sarcastically, “there’s a prophecy.”

“Ah hu,” Harris yawned. “Demon-god Belus, mystical portal-thing. Ninth great darkness rolls around, portal opens, guardians drop the ball, vampire servants come home and wackiness ensues.”

Carter felt like she’d been punched in the solar plexus. Across from her, Daniel’s eyes grew comically wide and his shock was repeated on nearly every other face around the table. Even General O’Neill dropped the pen he’d been fidgeting with. The clatter it made when it hit the table was almost obscenely loud in the otherwise silent room. 

“Say, you folks wouldn’t know anything about that would ya?” Harris asked. Carter supposed their shocked silence had made it glaringly obvious that they did.

The general simply hung up the phone. They sat and listened to the dial tone for few minutes until he turned off the speaker function. “Did you have the dream?” he asked Hailey quietly.

Carter couldn’t believe he was taking this at all seriously. Dreams were not prophetic and “actual prophecies” as Harris had put it were no more reliable than horoscopes. It was like she had explained to Jonas that time he’d thought he was clairvoyant; the Heisenberg uncertainty principle said that it was impossible to predict the path of a single sub-atomic particle let alone prophesied the future. Every prophecy they’d run into and fulfilled off-world was either the product of time travel or simply coincidence filling in vague wording. All right, yes, the one Harris had spouted off was not vague in the least and seemed eerily applicable, but that didn’t mean it was real. 

“Sir,” she began when suddenly everyone else began to talk as well. Dr. Lee and two others were trying to explain the Heisenberg uncertainty principle as loudly as possible. Daniel was demanding to know what a Slayer was while someone else was speculating that the room was bugged and Harris worked for the trust. The new guy was saying something sarcastic about tea leaves and Hailey was apologizing profusely. 

The general, on the other hand, was pinching his nose and looking pained. “People,” he said. “People,” he repeated a little louder when it became clear no one was listening. “For crying out loud, people,” he shouted. The room fell silent. “Does it matter? Forget the damn prophecy. We have people to rescue and vampires to kill.”


	7. Plans of Attack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fools rush in, smart people plan ahead.

It was nearing 21:00 hours and General O’Neill sat alone in the briefing room watching the original MALP video from PX9-3QL. After their little phone call with Harris, his egghead focus group had gotten so unfocused that he’d sent them home to calm down, cool off and maybe take a few tranquilizers. Right now it was time for him to get down to business though. Harris had told them everything O’Neill needed to know about vampires. All he needed now was a plan.

The ‘gate on PX9-3QL sat at one end of a hockey rink sized plaza. The DHD house, and SG-13 inside of it, was at the opposite end with the pillar-thing that had excited Balinsky smack in the middle. A double row of columns flanked the plaza on both sides offering excellent cover for an ambush. In the MALP footage, the plaza was empty under bright sunlight, but O’Neill’s imagination filled it in with vampires and darkness. In his mind’s ye they were built like Hulk Hogan with fangs down to their chins and swirling black opera capes. They vont to suck blood, but the idea was not to let them.

Harris had suggested napalm, so they’d start off with that. O’Neill pictured the canisters bursting open on the plaza’s paving stones and splattering liquid fire. The vampires would go up like torches and the whole place would fill with an almost solid wall of flame. Which would be bad since then they wouldn’t actually be able to get to SG-13 to rescue them. Oy. Scratch that plan.

Flamethrowers, everyone loved flamethrowers. Except they didn’t actually have any. Of course, this was the U.S. Air Force, so they could get them. It would just take time and lots of really boring paperwork. Who know if Bosworth and SG-13's supplies would last that long? Staff weapons should do the trick. Teal’c had one and there were about a dozen captured ones floating around the base in various labs and armories.

O’Neill’s new scenario featured Teal’c and twelve others bursting out of the wormhole with staff weapons a’ blazing. They would wear crosses, big ones, and have Hailey backing them up with her stake. He figured they would probably make some headway before the vampires eventually overwhelmed them. Even with their own hok’tar it was inevitable. The combination of the staff’s inaccuracy and lousy rate of fire plus the twelve against fifty odds almost guaranteed a mission failure. They couldn’t do it; not with just twelve staff weapons, not with just one Slayer. General O’Neill sighed. It was going to be a long night and he had a lot of calls to make.

*****

 

Willow sprawled across her bed and stared at her blank computer screen. Xander had told them all about his late night phone call with Jennifer Hailey and friends. Now they had a definite lead on the portal, they just needed some more information before they swung into action. That’s where Willow came in and she was kind of excited. It had been such a long time since she’d had a real challenge, and nothing said challenge like hacking into a secure military database. It was going to be fun.

It was also going to be tricky. It wasn’t that there would be fire-walls. She could handle fire-walls, even the extra flame-y kind. She wasn’t worried about encryption either, ‘cause decryption? Super easy. No, the big problem was that Willow didn’t actually have a place to hack into. There was no IP address, no one hacking into her system to follow home, not even a handy www.topsecretprojects.mil website to visit. They didn’t even really know what the project was called. Xander thought it was something like deep space radio television, but Willow was pretty sure that wasn’t right.

No, she was going to have to do this the hard way. They had three names, Jennifer Hailey, Daniel Jackson and Jack O’Neill, and Willow would just have to hack into the Pentagon until she could figure out exactly where they were posted. Whatever that turned out to be, they knew it was in NORAD, so she should be able to find a floor plan or something. It would take a while, but it would work. Come dinner time they’d be in Colorado lecturing military types about why you shouldn’t play with mystical portals.

Willow had a plan. She was good to go. She was about to turn on her computer when the phone rang.


	8. The Crack Team

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introduction time, now with added culture shock.

Hailey assembled in the gateroom with General O’Neill and SG-1. She wondered what was going on. The general looked calm and cheerful with his hands in his pockets, but the members of SG-1 looked as confused as Hailey felt.

“Jack,” Dr. Jackson said after a few awkward minutes. 

“Daniel,” the general returned.

“Why are we standing here?”

“We’re waiting for the Council’s team,” O’Neill told him.

“Okay,” Dr. Jackson drew the word out. “So, why are we waiting here?" He had a point. It wasn’t like they were coming from another planet, just England.

“They said pick a location, so I picked one.” He pulled his hand from his pocket and checked his wrist watch. “They should be here in five, four, three, two, one.” He counted off the seconds, but nothing happened. General O’Neill frowned and tapped his watch.

Dr. Jackson opened his mouth, no doubt to say something sarcastic, when he was interrupted by a loud pop and a whoosh of displaced air as sixteen people suddenly appeared a foot above the gateroom floor. One of them gave a loud eep before they all hit the floor with a dull thud and a clatter of weapons. Hailey blinked at the human heap. How had they gotten a hold of beaming technology? Where had they learned to aim?

“Ow,” someone said pointedly as they began to sat up.

“Oopsie,” came a voice from somewhere towards the middle of the pile.

A blonde woman Hailey didn’t recognize burst from the pack. “Hi,” she burbled as she shook Hailey’s hand. “You’re Jennifer Hailey, right? I’m Buffy Summers.” She was short and pretty with the mannerisms of a former cheerleader, but her grip and eyes were hard. Summers may have had the name of a born flake, but Hailey knew she was a Slayer.

Next to her, General O’Neill cleared his throat pointedly. “Oh, General-guy,” Summers greeted him with a smile. “Thanks for the invite. Really cuts down on the whole gun-waving and shouting thing.” The general was getting a look on his face like he was sorry he’d drawn her attention, but he shook her hand anyway. 

By this time Harris had joined them. He looked just like Hailey remembered him. A little older, a little fitter and a lot less tired, but the smile and the eye-patch were the same. “Hi. I’m Xander Harris,” he introduced himself to the others. “We spoke on the phone.”

Behind him the rest of the Council team had found their feet and were bunched together at the base of the ramp. They looked like a female Rainbow Coalition. They were black, white, Asian, Hispanic and a few were some ethnicity Hailey couldn’t quite place. They also looked a lot younger than they had in her dreams. Some of them barely looked old enough to drive let alone drink.

Apparently General O’Neill had noticed the same thing and, by the sound if it, he wasn’t happy. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he exclaimed. “This is you’re crack team?” he practically snarled at Harris. “What are you?” he demanded of a tiny Asian girl with Hello Kitty barrettes in her hair. “Twelve?” 

“I”m fifteen,” she told him angrily.

“Oh, fifteen,” snarked O’Neill. “Well, that makes all the difference.” He rounded on Harris. “What is wrong with you? I’m not sending fifteen-year-old kids to go fight vampires on another planet.”

The Asian girl clearly didn’t much appreciate being called a kid. “I’ve been fighting vampires since I was thirteen. I–” She broke off and her eyes went wide. “Another planet-u?” she asked, her Japanese accent quite pronounced. Her eyes grew even wider as she gasped. “Sugoi!” she squealed. 

“Sayaka. Decaf, yo,” said an unfamiliar brunette. “Wait,” she spun to face the general. “Another planet?”

“I’m confused,” said Dr. Jackson. “You knew there were three moons. Where did you think you were going?”

“Another dimension, ‘cause, with the portal,” answered the older of the two redheads. 

“Another dimension!” Hailey and Carter exclaimed together. Hailey remembered her paper “Towards a New Cosmology of Multiple Realities.” Had she been right? Was the woman just theorizing about portals and dimensions or did she actually know something? Carter was looking scornful at the idea, but Hailey was excited. Sure, the Stargate was awesome, but how cool would it be to travel to another dimension? 

The Council team didn’t much care about that though. For them the novelty of visiting another planet was cool enough. “How will we get there?” “Do you have a space ship?” “Does it have warp speed?” “Can I drive?” The questions came fast and from all directions. It was actually kind of funny.

“Actually,” General O’Neill said with a smug smile, “you’re going through that.” He pointed to the Stargate behind them.

They turned to stare. “Bloody hell,” said a girl in awed tones. “What is that?”

“It’s actually a giant superconductor,” Carter began, drawing their attention back from the gate itself. “With sufficient power it can be used to establish a wormhole to–”

“It’s Belus’s portal,” General O’Neill summed up.

There was a collective “oh” from the group and they turned back as one to study the gate. “Cool,” Hailey heard someone say.


	9. Getting a Seat on the Bus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team gets down to business, or at least talking about it.

General O’Neill wasn’t what Willow had been expecting. She remembered the poopy-head colonel from the Initiative with his you-can’t-break-into-my-base-with-a-magic-gourd attitude. General Call-Me-Jack was totally different; less fascist stooge, more over-protective Nick at Nite dad. “I don’t care how many apocalypses you’ve stopped. You can’t drive, you can’t go through the stargate.”

A couple of broken crow bars and some tales of apocalypses past had convinced General Jack that, despite appearances, the girls really could hold their own, but he still had issues with little Sayaka. She was the youngest and apparently fifteen was too young to fight the forces of darkness. Sayaka, of course, had other ideas. “Buffy,” she whined, “tell him I can go.”

“Hey,” General Jack said indignantly, “What are you asking her for? Does it say general on her uniform?”

“No, but it doesn’t say it on yours either,” Rona pointed out. 

The man seemed a little thrown as he glanced down at the front of his plain blue fatigue-things and discovered she was right. “Yeah, well,” he recovered, “it’s my stargate and what I say goes.” Willow almost giggled at that. Who knew battle-hardened general-types could sound like four-year-old boys?

“I’d hate to be the voice of reason here,” Xander jumped in, “but do we really have time for this?”

“Yeah,” Faith agreed. “Clock’s tickin’. We’ve got vamps to slay, people to rescue and we’re gonna need everyone we’ve got.”

“They’ve got a point, Jack,” added Dr. Jackson. He sort of reminded her of a young non-British Giles. He was the kind of guy Willow probably would have been into except for the whole being gay thing.

“Alright,” the general said finally, “you can go.” He’d made the sensible decision, but didn’t look happy about it. Sayaka, on the other hand, was tickled pink. She lunged across the table to hug him excitedly and squeal in his ear. Poor man, his hearing would never be the same.

“Great,” said Buffy, “now that’s done, can we get with the plan making? So, are we thinking diagrams and stuff or are the seventeen of us just doing a John Wayne charge?”

“Technically, there wont be seventeen of you,” the general told her.

“Oh, you can so not be serious,” Buffy said. “I thought we were done with this whole–”

“As I was saying,” General Jack interrupted her, “there wont just be seventeen of you. On the phone, Harris said something about flame throwers, and while we don’t have any, we do have something cooler.”

“Yeah, what?” asked Xander excitedly. Boys sure did like things that spat fire or went boom. 

The general didn’t answer but instead pointed to the big black guy who’d barely said two words since they’d gotten here. “I believe O’Neill is referring to a staff weapon,” he intoned. 

“Staff weapon,” Buffy repeated skeptically. It didn’t really sound all that cool or flame-y. 

“Indeed,” he responded with a slow and oddly regal nod of his head.

There was something off about him. Not just the funky gold forehead tattoo or the too formal way he talked, there was something weird with his aura. “Oh!” Willow exclaimed as her hands fluttered excitedly. “You’re an alien. That’s why your aura’s all funky and not connected to the earth. How long have you been here?” Willow frowned. “Shouldn’t you be less human-shaped?”

“I am a Jaffa,” alien-guy told her.

“You’re pretty big for a snack food, mate,” said Koria.

Alien-guy may have been able to give Oz a run for his money when it came to cucumber coolness and stoic non-expression, but Willow thought she saw some indignation peeking through. “Jaffa are not snack food.” 

“Actually,” said Dr. Jackson, “they are, and they’re really good too.” Alien-guy turned slowly to stare at the doctor and raised his eye-brow menacingly. “But Jaffa like Teal’c are actually the descendants of humans taken from earth to be used as incubators of larval goa’uld,” Dr. Jackson continued hurriedly. “They look human but aren’t, and have lots of proud traditions that have nothing to do with little chocolate-covered orange cakes.” 

“Yeah,” Buffy dead-panned. “So, staff weapons. What’s the what?”

“They’re the traditional Jaffa weapons,” General Jack explained. “They’re sort of this big” –he held out his arms– “they shoot fire, plus you can hit people with them. We have twelve here on base. Teal’c and our best shots are going to back you up.”

“Sweet!” exclaimed Xander. “That sounds way cooler than the crossbow I was planning on taking.”

“You’re not going,” the general informed him.

“What?!” Xander burst. “Seasoned vampire hunter here. Okay, yes, one eye, but I have a driver’s license. I just have to renew it every year.”

The general just raised an eyebrow. “My gate, my rules,” he reminded Xander like he hadn’t just completely caved when it came to Sayaka.

Xander still looked mulish and Willow figured she should step in before things got nasty. Xander could hold his own one-on-one against fledglings, but the odds here would be way different and against some ancient vamps. “Xander,” she said soothingly, “he just doesn’t want you to get hurt, or, you know, do the friendly fire thing.”

Her friend glared at her for a minute before taking a nice soothing breath. Willow was glad she wouldn’t have resort to puppy-eyes and resolve-face after all. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll stay, and you can keep me company.”

“What? No. Two eyes” – she gestured to her face– “Plus, magic.”

“Magic that’s tied to the earth,” he said in one of those annoyingly reasonable tones he’d picked up from Giles. It was a cheap trick; sounding all sensible when he was really just putting a metaphorical frog in her bed. 

“He’s got a point, Will,” agreed Buffy. “If your magic doesn’t work on another planet you could be in trouble.”

Buffy too? Willow turned to her lover. Kennedy would set them straight. “I’m sorry, baby,” she said instead. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

Willow began to pout. She knew it was childish, but it wasn’t fair. She was a powerful witch, not some hapless sidekick. “Besides, Will,” Buffy tried to comfort her, “we need you here guarding the portal in case we screw up.”

“Oh, alright,” grumbled Willow. “I’ll stay here and be all responsible.”

“Hey,” protested Xander. “How come Willow gets a save the world consolation prize and all I get is a lousy ‘we’re worried about the good lamps?’”

“Because she’s cuter and obviously more needy,” General Jack answered dryly. “Now, on to business.” 

They spent the next hour watching footage of the planet she wouldn’t be going to and planning an assault she wouldn’t be involved in. It just wasn’t fair.


	10. The Cavalry Cometh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cavalry comes and they're a lot prettier than SG-13 is expecting.

They hadn’t been waiting forever, but it sure felt like they had. According to his watch, it was just shy of 48-hours, but those were some fairly hellish hours. Between worrying about Bosworth and playing road trip games to stave off boredom, Colonel Dixon felt like he was losing his mind. He knew the SGC, more importantly he knew Jack, and he knew that they would never abandon him. There was no doubt that a rescue was coming, but that didn’t make waiting for it any easier. 

Then her heard it, the sound he’d been waiting for. Bosworth was out of it, but Wells and Balinsky both looked up when the gate began to spin. Dixon headed to the door to watch. The kawoosh of the gate was a beautiful thing. Then came the cavalry.

***

ColonelCarter was skilled in battle and Ishta and her followers were formidable warriors, but the Slayers of the Tau’ri were beyond skilled and formidable. BuffySummers and two others had lead the charge through the chaapa’ai with the rest following in teams of three behind her. They had moved quickly and by the time Teal’c had lead his team through it was clear which side was winning. Teal’c stepped down into the space the Slayers had cleared and began to fire.

The Slayers were incredible. On the base they had seemed like children, but here they were cutting through the vampires like a heated blade through spreadable dairy product. Some of them fought with snarls on their faces and the light of battle in their eyes while others had all the serenity of a Jaffa at Kel no’reem. One of the girls, SlayerNiyati, fought with her eyes closed. The light of the three moons flickered off her two blades as she danced through the dust of her victims. Teal’c imagined even MasterBra’tac would weep from the beauty of it.

***

Hailey fought in the middle of the left flank with a stake in her hand. On her right Sayaka hacked away with her katana like a hyperactive anime samurai while on her left Lollise was methodically killing vampires with a spear. She was so cool and professional as she knocked them down and ran them through, but Hailey felt stupid with her own little stick. Her hands longed for the comfort of her gun for all the good it would do her. She may have had the strength and the dreams, but in her heart Hailey knew she was a soldier before she was a Slayer. 

And then she didn’t even have her sharpened stick any more. It was gone, turned to dust at her feet with her latest kill leaving her unarmed and royally screwed. A vampire charged her and Hailey managed to fend it off with a kick to the knee and a blow to the face. It would be up soon. Hailey backed off, her eyes searching fruitlessly for a wood among the stone ruins. The vampire found its feet and Hailey fell back some more. She was unarmed on a planet full of vampires. God, why hadn’t she brought her gun? 

“Jenny!” Hailey turned as Summers lobbed her strange ax-thing across the plaza. It sang as it flew and Hailey had snatched it out of the air and decapitated a vampire with it before she even noticed what she held. It was the silver and red ax from her dream. Forget her stake, forget her gun; she’d never held a weapon that had felt more right.

***

The creatures of Jaffa legend were near invincible fearing only the sun and their Lord Belus, but these vampires were like the false gods of Teal’c’s youth; they could, in fact, be killed. A single blast from his staff weapon would set them ablaze and then to ash. And Teal’c was not the only one killing them. As he followed BuffySummers across the plaza he waded through piles of dust. Truly, she was a most effective warrior, and then she inexplicably threw her weapon away. 

The woman was mad, even for a Tau’ri. Her vampire opponent seemed as shocked by the move as he was, and Teal’c took the opportunity to strike it in the face with his staff. He stepped back to fire the killing shot when a voice came from behind him. “Thanks big guy, but” –she pulled a slim wooden stick from her hair and rammed it into the vampire’s heart –“I got this.”

Teal’c politely inclined his head to the petite blonde woman. “Indeed.”

***

Dixon and Wells stood in the doorway and watched with their useless guns in their hands and their jaws around their knees. _This_ was the cavalry? They were teenage girls, scarily effective teenage girls true, but certainly not the usual SGC marines. They boiled out of the gate like pissed off ants from a flattened anthill and began killing things left and right. Teal’c and a bunch of actual marines joined them a few minutes later and they began to move purposely towards the DHD house. Dixon had no idea who these girls were but he was sure the blood suckers of PX9-3QL never stood a chance.

Once they’d secured the gate, the team leader made straight for the DHD house with Teal’c hot on her heels. Her long blonde hair swirled as she moved and when she greeted them her smile was like the sun. “Are you that Mason-Dixon guy? I’m Buffy.” She slammed the back of her head into the nose of the monster who had been attempting to sneak up on her. She seized his wrist as he stumbled backwards, swung him around, threw him hard against the force field protecting the door and stabbed him with what looked like a chopstick. It was over in less than a minute and Dixon found himself looking from the pile of dust at his feet to the girl’s smiling face in confusion. “We’re here to rescue you.”


	11. Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back at the SGC, our other heroes practice their thumb twiddling.

The portal switched off with a satisfyingly sci-fi sound. They stood in the control room and gazed down at the now empty gate room. Aside from the nifty centerpiece the decor left something to be desired. What was it with military types and their total inability to pick paint that wasn’t grey?

“So, now what?” asked Dr. Jackson. Xander was confused. Didn’t he work here? Shouldn’t he know?

“Well, I’m new to this whole friends going off to other planets thing, but I figure we wait, worry, maybe fret if we’re feeling ambitious,” Xander said.

Jackson gave him a we-are-not-amused look, but General Jack nodded. “Sounds about right,” he agreed before heading over to a small table and pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Usually I do some paperwork, play a little Gameboy.”

“Well, we don’t have any paperwork,” said Willow, “but, oh, I could summon a deck of cards.”

Dr. Jackson gave her a weird look and headed over to accept a cup of coffee from the general. “I just mean, is there something we should be doing about the vampires?” he clarified.

“They’re on another planet, Daniel,” Jack reminded him. “There’s really not all that much we can do from here.”

“Yes, Jack,” the good doctor sounded a little annoyed, “but according to the prophecy, they come here. So, again, isn’t there something we should be doing?”

“Oh, come on, Daniel,” said the blonde Colonel lady as she too accepted coffee. They’d been introduced earlier, but damned if Xander could remember her name. “Vampires are one thing, but you can’t seriously believe in that cr–” She broke off abruptly when General Jack coughed pointedly and gestured to Willow and Xander with his head. “That is, ah...” 

“It’s cool,” Xander reassured her. “You’re Scully, we get it, but the man’s got a point.”

“Yeah,” agreed Willow. “They could get turned.”

“Turned?” General Jack asked sharply. “To what? The dark side of the force?”

“Kinda yeah, what with the whole vampire becoming thing,” answered Willow.

Dr. Jackson’s head jerked up from his coffee. “Wait, people can become vampires? Did we know this?”

“How could you not?” asked Xander. Where did the man think little vampires came from? “It’s not like there’s a vampire stork. They suck your blood, you suck theirs, you die, you wake up–”

“And poof, vampire,” Willow finished. Admittedly, not quite how Xander would have worded it, but it got the point across.

“Holy Hannah!” exclaimed Colonel Blonde. “Any one of them could come back as vampires and we’d have no way of detecting them.”

“Well, if they come back within the next 24 hours we’ll know that none of the rescue team will have been turned,” Xander told her. “On the other hand, those guys they’re rescuing have been there a while so they might be, you know, evil blood-sucking fiends.”

“We need some way to identify them,” said the general. “Before they start killing people.”

“What about mirrors?” suggested Jackson. “Vampires don’t have reflections, right?” He waited for Xander’s nod before continuing. “We could set up a big mirror and just look to see who isn’t reflected in it.”

General Jack shook his head. “With that many people it’s going to be hard to spot who has one and who doesn’t. We don’t want to accidentally stake our own people.”

“Sir,” began the Colonel, “we know that sunlight kills them. We could rig up a system of lights in the gate room to mimic the sun’s light spectrum. With the proper mix of infrared, ultraviolet and visible lights we should be able to eliminate the vampires without harming anyone else.”

In theory, it was a good, if excessively wordy, idea. The problem was that, as Willow quickly pointed out, it wouldn’t actually work. “It has to be genuine, real, accept-no-substitutes sunlight. None of that synthetic stuff,” she explained. “We’ve tried.”

“Okay, scratch that idea,” grumbled General Jack. He turned to look out towards the gate room as though for inspiration and Xander joined him. The big shield-thing which covered the portal told him this wasn’t the first time they’d had to deal with unwanted alien visitors. He supposed that it kept out the bug-eyed baddies, but what about the bugs? They must have some way to deal with alien diseases.

“Hey, do you guys have one of those portable decontamination showers?” he asked. 

“Oh, yeah,” Willow jumped in excitedly. “We could set it up in front of the gate and run holy water through it.”

“That will kill them?” asked the general.

“Well, no,” she conceded. “Mostly they just start smoking and screaming, but that should make them super easy to spot.”

The general sipped his coffee and considered his options. “Carter,” he barked. The blonde Colonel sir-ed and jumped. So that was her name. “I want you and Siler to go set that up.”

Colonel Carter nodded curtly and headed towards the stairs. She paused and turned on the top step. “About the holy water, is there anything special that needs to be done to, ah, bless it?”

Willow and Xander shared a look. “Dear god, make this water extra holy and send me a pony for Christmas?” Xander shrugged. “Whatever priests normally say. Your chaplain should know.”

“You might want to get the chaplain in on it too,” General Jack told her. 

She nodded again and turned to go down the stairs. Xander watched her go. It had been awhile since he was soldier guy, but Xander was pretty sure that the tank-top and those extra-snug pants weren’t exactly regulation. They sure were nice to look at though.

Willow clearly thought the same thing. “Bet she looks even better without them,” she murmured. A choking noise from behind them meant that her comment had been a little loud. General Jack was still sputtering on his coffee as they turned around. “I’m gay,” she explained.

“Oh,” the general still looked like he’d just been bonked on the head with a porn video. It was understandable. No only did he probably not meet too many openly gay people here in the land of don’t ask don’t tell, they were both pretty hot. “So,” he asked once he’ d recovered, “how do we want to kill these vampires once we’ve id-ed them?” 

“I was thinking magic.”

“Magic?” asked Dr. Jackson.

“Yup. I’m not only a lesbian, I’m a witch too.” The looks on their faces were priceless.


	12. And Home Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team gets ready to head home. Complications ensue.

There were more than fifty vampires on this planet, a lot more. It had taken them a few minutes to realize they were getting slaughtered, but once they had figured out that Slayers weren’t an easy meal, they had retreated beyond the colonnade into the woods. Hailey could hear them out there, watching and rustling in the trees. In her dream, she had hunted them down under the white flowers of the forest. Of course, in her dream, she’d had that luxury while in reality she had orders. Until they evacuated SG-13, they had to hold the plaza.

Once they’d secured the area, they had divided into teams of two, one Slayer, one soldier with a staff weapon, and prepared to defend their quadrant. In the meantime, Teal’c, Summers and her two dark-haired lieutenants handled the evacuation. It was tense, waiting to go or be attacked, and Hailey and her partner Grogan were so intent on the wood’s that they missed the approach of a woman from behind them.

“Hey,” came the husky voice. Hailey and Grogan spun, she hefting her borroowed ax and he leveling his staff. It was the older of Summer’s two lieutenants, Faith. She was smiling and she was smoking.

“You shouldn’t do that,” Hailey told the woman angrily as soon as her heart-rate had returned to normal.

“What?” Faith asked. “Sneak up on people in the dark on an alien planet?” Her smile had become a smirk, and Hailey got the feeling she wasn’t taking this seriously. 

“That, and smoke,” Grogan said. He still sounded a little out of breath from the surprise and more than a little pissed off because of it.

Faith glanced down at her cigarette. “Another health nut?” She rolled her eyes. “I’m a Slayer, yo. I’ll be lucky if I live long enough to get cancer.”

And wasn’t that just an uplifting attitude. Working at the SGC probably wouldn’t do wonders for Hailey’s life-span, but Faith’s attitude about Slaying seemed distressingly bleak. Of course, the possibility of cancer wasn’t even the issue. “He means, you’re giving away our position.” Any good soldier knew that. Wasn’t she supposed to be a professional?

She actually laughed at that. It was almost obscenely loud compared to the rustling of the vampires. So much for professional. “I think they know we’re here.” Faith took a long drag off her cigarette and looked Hailey over. “You’ve got the Scythe.”

“The what?”

“The Scythe,” Faith repeated and gestured towards Hailey’s ax with her cigarette.

“I may just be a city boy,” began Grogan, “but I’m pretty sure that is in no way scythe-shaped.”

“Naw,” Faith agreed. “It’s more of an ax with a spear on the end, but it’s got some serious Slayer mojo. Plus, Scythe just sounds wicked cool.” 

Hailey looked at the weapon in her hand. She wasn’t quite sure what Faith meant by “Slayer mojo,” but the Scythe-thing just felt right to her. She knew she’d have to return it sooner or later, but she hoped Faith wasn’t here to bring it back to Summers. “So, why are you here?”

“Right.” Faith took one last drag before dropping her cigarette. “Like I told Sayaka and Sergeant Fine-ass over there, we’re about ready to pull out, so heads up..” Hailey supposed she was referring to Paulson who was actually a captain but did have a nice ass. The whole thing just seemed really unprofessional, and not just because of the nickname. 

“You came all the way over here to tell us that?” Grogan sounded incredulous. “You do realize that’s what the radio is for, right?”

Faith pulled her radio from her back pocket and looked at it like she’d never seen it before. “You press this to talk, right?” She pressed the transmit button. “Hey people,” she said into the mike, “we’re gonna go soon, so get ready.” She paused. “Ah, over.” Then she pocketed the radio and strolled away.

Hailey and Grogan shared a confused look. These people were the crack team that had stopped apocalypses, and they didn’t know how to use a communications radio? How did they coordinate their attacks? Yell really loudly?

Despite the Council’s apparent lack of basic military skills and training, they were ready to go less than five minutes later. The gate fired up, and Faith, with an unconscious Bosworth slung over her shoulder, led SG-13 home. Just like they had planned back on earth, the two pairs furthest from the gate followed them through while Teal’c, Summers and her other lieutenant moved to cover their retreat. The rustling in the forest picked up and Hailey tightened her grip on the Scythe. If the vampires were going to attack, now would be the time to do it. 

But they didn’t. When their turn came, Hailey and Grogan met Sergeant Vasques and his Slayer in the middle of the plaza and headed together through the gate. The trip home was the same rush as always, but on the other side it was raining, or at least it seemed to be. Instead of the usual team of gun-toting SF’s, at the bottom of the ramp stood Harris with a crossbow and an unarmed redhead. The medical team had already whisked Bosworth away, but the rest of the team from PX9-3QL stood off to the side looking damp and annoyed. General O’Neill was there too looking pleased and dry.

Harris smiled at her as Hailey made her way down the ramp to join the others. Up by the gate, the decontamination shower was spewing some clear liquid on the next group to come through. The look on their faces would have been funnier if she hadn’t been wet herself. Another team came through and then the only ones left on PX9-3QL were Teal’c, Summers, the brown-haired Slayer, and a whole lot of vampires.

The three of them burst through the gate at a dead run. Teal’c yelled for them to close the iris, but two vampires managed to make it through before it slid shut and the thumping began. The vampires’ skin began to sizzle as soon as the liquid from the decontamination shower hit them. They seemed almost as confused about what was going on as Hailey was. What exactly was in the liquid? One of the vampires was shrieking hysterically and frantically rubbing his skin, but the other just snarled angrily and charged the nearest target.

Summers’ stake went flying as the vampire slammed her into the ramp. Hailey and every other Slayer in the room surged forward to help her, but the dark-haired Slayer got there first. She dragged it off Summers by the scruff his neck and swung him round to face the control room. There was a twang as Harris fired his crossbow and the vampire exploded in a cloud of dust. His formerly hysterical companion roared in rage and rounded on the girl.

“Down.” The redhead shouted to be heard over the thud of vampires against the iris. Teal’c and the Slayer hit the deck as a fireball flew from the tips of the woman’s fingers. The vampire was ash before he had a chance to scream.

“So,” said General O’Neill in a voice that sounded oddly hollow. “That’s magic.”


	13. Debriefings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap.

It was very late and the cup of tea on the edge of his desk was ice cold, but Giles was up and waiting. He’d be trying to distract himself with his backlog of paperwork with mixed success for hours now. He was signing off on a book order when he was interrupted by a loud pop and a whoosh of displaced air. Giles looked up in time to see sixteen familiar faces appear in his office. They looked fine, a little dusty, but none the worse for wear. They were all smiling and Giles smiled back. “I take it everything went well?”

Xander nodded. “We had a surprisingly positive military experience.”

“We got to go to another planet,” said Vi excitedly.

“Well, some of us did,” grumbled Willow.

That seemed to release the floodgates as everyone began to speak at once. “..Meet an alien.” “...Jaffa, but not the food.” “...Lieutenant was hot.” “...Cake!” “...stupid needles...” “Jack...hugable...” Giles didn’t even try to sort it out. He just removed his glasses with a sigh and waited for them to wind down. As glad as he was that they were fine, there were days he suspected he was getting too old for such displays of girly enthusiasm.

“Can we do this later, yo?” Faith came to his rescue. “I don’t know about you people, but I need a shower and a nap.”

Buffy nodded. “I’m seriously jet-lagged.” Her nose wrinkled as her face clouded with confusion. “Can you even get jet-lagged from teleporting?”

“Teleport-lag then,” Xander offered with a shrug. 

Giles replaced his glasses and looked at his watch. “It’s just after midnight now. Why don’t we pick this up tomorrow over lunch when we’re all a bit more awake?”

The girls all nodded their assent and wished him goodnight before wandering off in search of a shower and a bed. After a few moments, the only people left in the room were Giles and Xander. The younger man flopped down in Giles’ spare chair and made himself at home. 

“Well, that was fun.”

“Oh?” Giles asked dryly as he pretended to return to his paperwork.

“Yup. The girls took a worm-free wormhole to another planet, Will and I saved the world, and a good time was had by all.” Giles had known Xander for nearly ten years now and he still had trouble figuring out just how much of what came out of his mouth to take seriously. He’d take space travel and tales of heroics with a grain of salt.

There was, however, one thing Giles had come to rely on Xander for. “Are these people going to be a problem?”

Xander cocked his head as he considered and Giles unconsciously held his breath as he waited for the verdict. “They’re not the Initiative. Sure, they’re big into the top secret, but they’re good people.”

Giles exhaled with a whoosh. “Well, that’s a relief.” Giles threw is pen down. When he hadn’t been worrying about his people’s immediate safety, he’d been fretting about that. Giles didn’t know what he would have done if they’d tried to come after his girls, but he knew it would have done Ripper proud.

“Were you waiting up just to ask me that?” Xander sounded amused at the idea.

“Of course not. Don’t be silly.” The younger man favored Giles with one of those annoyingly knowing looks he’d picked up recently. “I’ve got a Council to run and this paperwork doesn’t exactly do itself.” He took one last swig of his stone-cold tea and got up. “Well, off to bed.”

*****

When he had heard what Jack was planning, Hammond had wanted to catch the first plane to the Springs. Unfortunately, a series of unavoidable budget meetings had made it impossible to make it before the mission. He managed to arrive in time for the post-mission debriefing, only to find that the Council team wasn’t even there. “They really wanted to get out of here,” Jack told him as they stood awkwardly in his old office waiting for the debriefing to start. “I had to bribe them with cake just to stick around for the medical exam.”

A few of the officers began trickling into the briefing room, so the two of them headed towards their seats. It felt strange not to be sitting at the head of the table and, by the look on his face, Jack would gladly trade places with him in a second. This was Jack’s show though, and there was no doubt in Hammond’s mind that he’d earned the right. Despite knowing that, Hammond couldn’t help automatically taking charge as the debriefing began. “How is Captain Bosworth?”

“Well, sir,” Dixon began, “he’s lost a lot of blood, but Dr. Brightman said that the wound wasn’t infected and he’s responding well to the transfusion, so he should be fine.”

“That’s great,” Jack said with enthusiasm that Hammond shared. It was always a punch in the gut knowing one of your people was hurt and a relief knowing they’d be all right. “Now,” Jack continued, “you were kind of vague about what happened when you called.”

Colonel Dixon nodded and, as he launched into a more detailed description of the eclipse and the attack, Hammond began to study his, no Jack’s, people. Like their C.O., Balinsky and Wells looked tired but unhurt. Get them home to their families with maybe a weeks downtime and they’d be fine. The rescue team, on the other hand, looked like they’d had a grand old time.

“–Retreated to the DHD house, and that’s when we called home,” Dixon wrapped up.

“And what about the rescue?” Hammond asked. He’d seen Lieutenant Hailey spar with Teal’c and he’d seen some footage of Buffy Summers, but he couldn’t imagine a whole passel of Slayers in action.

Apparently, fifteen Slayers were roughly equivalent to a battalion of marines, only prettier. By all accounts, they had torn through the enemy like an industrial-strength shredder through tissue paper. As far as the men were concerned, the mission to PX9-3QL had been a cake walk and killing vampires with staff weapons was like shooting fish in a barrel. Even Lt. Hailey, who had actually gone hand-to-hand with the creatures, was smiling as she described killing the things with Summers’ borrowed ax. 

Clearly, the Slayers had been impressive, but Hammond knew the joint chiefs would want more than that. “What was your impression of the Council’s people?” he asked. 

“The Slayers are most capable and fearsome warriors,” Teal’c intoned. Coming from him, Hammond knew that to be quite the complement.

“Yeah, but they were so unpro–” Lt. Hailey broke off and seemed to consider her words. “It became apparent to me that the skills required to be a fearsome vampire-hunting warrior are really different from the ones required to be an effective soldier,” she said a bit more diplomatically. Hammond nodded. That was certainly the impression he had gotten from the Initiative files and he wondered what exactly had made Hailey feel that way too. Still, they had succeeded where military know-how had failed so there was clearly some effective method to their madness. 

“From what you’ve all said, it’s clear that the Council could be a valuable asset to this program,” Hammond began with a certain amount of trepidation. “The president wants to know if we should consider asking them to work with us on a more permanent basis.” 

The table was silent as they considered the idea. “No,” Jack said abruptly. Everyone turned to look and Teal’c raised a questioning eyebrow. “Leaving aside the fact that they’re _fifteen,_ they’re already doing their part to keep earth safe. Fat lot of good guarding the gate will do us if the planet gets overrun by monsters.” Several people were nodding in agreement. “Besides, I like our Slayer just fine. She follows orders, knows her physics and she’s never tried to hug me.”

Hammond chuckled as the joke warranted. There would probably be some disappointed folks back in Washington. The General Bauers of the Pentagon had practically been salivating at the idea of an army of Slayers at their beck and call, but Hammond was relieved Jack was turning the idea down. The SGC didn’t need Watchers, witches or even more Slayers; they were effective enough, and crazy enough, all on their lonesome. 

“All right, son,” Hammond said with a smile. “I’ll let the president know. Now, what’s this I hear about magic and holy water?”


End file.
